Great creative, great concept, great content. Love it! But, where are the viral hooks for people to share the video? No email to a friend, no embed code for a blog, Facebook, or MySpace, no nada. WTF? From a social media perspective this is like calling a Quarter Pounder with Cheese a Royale with Cheese.

1. Deliberate attempts at creating viral content more often fall flat because they lack the authenticity [and naivety] of really what appeals to consumers on a base level. Just because its a gorilla or a chimp or some other furry relative doesn’t always translate to our connecting with the subject, wanting to pass it on.

2. If the marketer wants the content to take on a life of its own — the essence of viral marketing — sometimes an incubator — like YouTube — is all it takes. Well, and time of course.

3. The original was — as you said — missing accelerators that could have moved the content across platforms. But the inherent value was realized because ultimately the audience must decide what and how it consumes its social media and it looks like some of them did, albeit organically it seems.

Of course, you can’t discount the possibility the adoption of the video [format] was not thoughtful and calculated.